My two best friends always allow me to take center stage, metaphorically speaking. So why not return the kindness by introducing them to each other? Silly personal thoughts like this created a catalyst that led me in the direction of playing with the concept of using the physical control elements on a guitar to connect with the web in a way that it might provide the possibility of musical notes, as well as additional unique sound elements, played through the computer. In other words, “How could I use my guitar as a type of pseudo keyboard to feed sound information into my computer?” This initial questioning required me to figure out how to go about creating an augmented guitar performance instrument that could in fact interact with a web browser. It quickly became obvious that I needed to employ the MAX software because of its ability to rapidly prototype sonic explorations. I had to narrow my focus towards what would best resonate with me to accomplish such a possibility for reinventing the use of the guitar. These thoughts led to my dabbling into a series of initial experiments with the notion of developing a solid sensibility in imagining a feasible application to control the use of the web browser as a musical instrument.

As a refresher, my initial project plan was to use biosensing (in particular, EEG sensors) on people in some unspecified setting for some unspecified purpose and to sonify that data as a means of being able to immerse strangers in an intimate view into another person’s experience. My project has shifted a lot since discovering that commercially available EEG sensors either 1) don’t interface well with MAX or 2) don’t work on Mac computers without a lot of signal processing.

Moving forward I decided to settle with GSR, which made the most sense in terms of also indirectly measuring emotional reaction but having more scaffolding than EEG since it seems much easier to deal with and more people have worked with GSR for projects. I spoke with the psych professor I’m working with and he confirmed that GSR was probably my best bet in terms of reliable data.